"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Case to Keep Cuba on the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism

"Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with
each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is
very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up."- Fidel Castro, University of Tehran, May 10, 2001 quoted in the Agence France Presse

Bilbao gave a presentation that focused on the political calculations
for removing Cuba from the list and about the political obstacles that
have prevented this and strategies to achieve the policy goals of the
Cuba Study Group (although Bilbao distanced the Cuba Study Group from
his presentation stating that these were his own views).

Unfortunately, the event only presented one side of the argument and Muse based his rebuttal on the U.S. State Department's report which offer, according to him, “3 purported reasons” that are weak. (Wikileaks offers more details about the relationship between the Cuban government and these terrorist groups given safe harbor in the island.) The attorney went on to conclude that it was an "arbitrary and capricious act to keep Cuba on the list." The only item in the State Department report that he conceded had some substance is the harboring of fugitives and specifically raised Joanne Chesimard (a.k.a Assata Shakur), who had been designated a terrorist by the FBI, which Muse then went on to dispute. However, the crux of the argument for keeping or removing Cuba from the list of terror sponsors was succinctly explained by Robert Muse as follows:

“The list. Cuba on the terror sponsoring list. Arises from a
statute, a 1979 statute that gives the Secretary of State the authority to
determine that a country has repeatedly provided support for international
terrorism and. International terrorism is defined under other statutes to be, to involve acts involving the citizens of the territory of more than one
country.”

The State Department's report on Cuba is underwhelming and leaves a lot out and is reminiscent of another report. In 1997 the Defense Intelligence Agency prepared a report that Secretary of Defense William Cohen sent to Congress that claimed that "Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S." and that "Cuba has
little motivation to engage in military activity beyond defense
of its territory and political system." The report also acknowledged that "Cuba has a limited capability to engage
in some military and intelligence activities which would be detrimental
to U.S. interests." Reading the full report at the time (as the State Department report now) was shocking because it didn't accord with what was available in the press. Years later, it turned out that the threat assessment had been prepared by a top Defense Intelligence Analyst, Ana Belen Montes ,who in reality had been working as a spy for Cuban intelligence for 15 years. She was arrested days after September 11, 2001 out of fear that the information she was providing to the Cubans would wind up in the hands of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.For the sake of brevity, below are three fundamental reasons why Cuba should be kept on the list of state sponsors of terrorism:First, the Cuban government has a long history of sponsoring terrorism beginning in the 1960s with the Tricontinental meetings where terrorism was viewed as a legitimate tactic. The University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies in 2004 published a chronology of Cuban government involvement in terrorism covering between 1959 and 2003. For example, their report lists how in 1970 the Cuban government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries"
in the official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO)
publication Tricontinental, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella,
which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc.
and translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide
by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism:

Terrorism is an action,
usually involving the placement of an explosive or firebomb of great
destructive power, which is capable of effecting irreparable loss
against the enemy. Terrorism requires that the urban guerrilla should
have adequate theoretical and practical knowledge of how to make
explosives. The terrorist act, apart from the apparent ease with which
it can be carried out, is no different from other guerrilla acts and
actions whose success depends on planning and determination. It is an
action which the urban guerrilla must execute with the greatest calmness
and determination. Although terrorism generally involves an explosion,
there are cases in which it may be carried out through executions or the
systematic burning of installations, properties, plantations, etc. It
is essential to point out the importance of fires and the construction
of incendiary devices such as gasoline bombs in the technique of
guerrilla terrorism. Another thing is the importance of the material the
urban guerrilla can persuade the people to expropriate in the moments
of hunger and scarcity brought about by the greed of the big commercial
interests. Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never relinquish.

Taking the above into account the April 7, 2002 statement by Richard
Nuccio, President Clinton's former special adviser on Cuba referenced by attorney Robert L. Muse is extremely troubling:

"Frankly, I don't know anyone in or outside of government who believes
in private that Cuba belongs on the terrorist list. People who defend it know
it is a political calculation. It keeps a certain part of the voting
public in Florida happy, and it doesn't cost anything."

Cuba, like North Korea, is a sponsor of terrorism and both are brutal totalitarian communist dictatorships ruled by small circles of strong men. On the merits both should be on the list. However, in Washington D.C. the facts can take a back seat to political and strategic interests. Nevertheless, taking all of this into account Tomás Bilbao's claim that taking Cuba off the list of terror sponsors would be in the national security interests of the United States doesn't add up. It makes about as much sense as the Bush Administration taking North Korea off the list in 2008 which did not slow down its drive to obtain and test nuclear weapons and today finds that government threatening to rain down nuclear weapons on American cities.